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Torben Westergaard
MUSICIAN, COMPOSER, MUSIC TEACHER EDUCATOR
Music brings us in touch with our feelings and closer together as human beings. I find it the most meaningful activity I can occupy myself with and what I have been pursuing for more than 40 years.
As a musician and composer, I am interested in exploring music broadly, creatively, and mindfully using the moment as the point of departure.
I have published 17 albums of my compositions, two of which were DMA-jazz-nominated in 2013 and 2014. Music has taken me to more than 20 countries, and I have composed for various ensembles, TV series, documentaries, and commercials. Between 2011-2014 I had the privilege to act as musical director for the legendary Danish singer-songwriter and film director, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen.
As a long-time music teacher and educator at the Danish music conservatories with two academic degrees under my belt, I have extensive knowledge of and an interest in learning, didactics, and communication.
I have written about creativity and learning, making presentations that present musically creative skills in broader contexts. Furthermore, I have started writing a book of interviews with highly accomplished artists in various fields about creative consciousness.
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Torben Westergaard: The Gori Project II
by Geno Thackara
Sometimes an experience is too special and rewarding to simply leave as a one-off. If it requires traveling 8,300 kilometers across the hemisphere, then maybe you cannot continue making it a habit as regular as popping off to the pub on weekends, but the right repeat can still be worth the effort, even if it takes a few years. Or such has been the experience of Torben Westergaard with the lingering euphoria from 2019's The Gori Project (self produced), which ...
read moreTorben Westergaard: Jazz Brazil
by Geno Thackara
For Torben Westergaard, sooner or later all roads lead back to Brazil. The special flavor of South American jazz shaped his life from an early age, and has stayed a recurring staple in his music from his debut Brazilian Heart (Self Produced, 1996) through the Tangofied (Gateway) series of 2013-17. If it's taken him a while to circle back to this favorite milieu again, that's because he has been roaming a long way in the meantime, from home base Denmark ...
read moreTorben Westergaard: Then/Now
by Geno Thackara
While Torben Westergaard has had a grand time bouncing from one surprising idea to another to another in previous years--crossing oceans with his Tangofied series, crossing continents with the Euro-Korean Gori Project (self produced, 2020), plus a few more niche-focused detours in between--it turns out it is just as pleasant to hear him settled on comfortably familiar ground. Rather than searching for a particular theme, Westergaard found himself in a more introspective mood as a result of pandemic-mandated time at ...
read moreTorben Westergaard: Kirsebærsne
by Geno Thackara
Torben Westergaard is nothing if not restless. Latin music has been the most defining element of his career to date, though explorations such as his Tangofied series have also happily bridged music and musicians of South America with those of his native Europe. This album's immediate predecessor, Heart Tunes (self-produced, 2018), made an unexpected detour into straightforward sunny dub-ambient territory instead. Where does a curious bassist go after that, one might ask? If you guessed “the world of ...
read moreTorben Westergaard: Heart Tunes
by Geno Thackara
Though Denmark may serve as a home base, Torben Westergaard's musical home can be anywhere new songs and ideas take him. The bassist was figuratively reaching halfway around the world as far back as Brazilian Heart (Self Produced, 1996). Argentina became an unexpectedly prominent touchstone, as the exploratory Tangofied (Point of Departure, 2013) grew into a three-album series joining players from South America and Europe. Fascinating as that endeavor turned out to be, Westergaard clearly felt it was time again ...
read moreTorben Westergaard: Tangofied III
by Geno Thackara
For the finale of his globe-spanning triptych (an unplanned endeavor that unexpectedly grew from the first installment's success), bassist Torben Westergaard considers himself to be making very much a return home. After the expanded cross-national lineup and largely Argentinian focus of Tangofied II (Gateway Music, 2014), he returned to his native Denmark to record only with the Tangofied Ensemble for the close of the cycle. This entry is a smooth blend with roots in both places that weaves songs around ...
read moreDanish Bassist/Composer Torben Westergaard Releases "Tangofied III"
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Torben Westergaard
The creative process leading to a particular product often first reveals itself afterward, i.e. when it has occurred. From the outcome, it all of a sudden becomes clearer in which way causalities led to the result. I had in no way planned that the Tangofied releases should end up as a trilogy. It just happened that way; the first CD brought about the other two. Tangofied (2012), was recorded in Buenos Aires with Argentine musicians in collaboration with pianist and ...
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“Torben Westergaard‘s charismatic concoction of Nordic jazz and Argentinean tango just keeps getting stronger and more refined. He brings a melancholy tone to the dance and incites excitable motion out of introspective thoughts”. birdistheworm.com
Primary Instrument
Bass, electric
Location
Copenhagen
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Torben Westergaard
Location: Copenhagen
Instrument: Bass, electric
Born: October 9, 1960
